To host a wildlife entertainment show, you can’t get much better training than shadowing Bear Grylls for a decade.

Mungo (real name: Paul Mungeam) has worked as an adventure cameraman for more than 20 years, the last 10 of those as part of Grylls’ crew on shows like NBC’s “Running Wild.” In “Expedition Mungo” (premiering Sunday at 10 p.m. on Animal Planet), the Brit steps in front of the camera for the first time.

“Over the years, I’ve been approached a few times, but the show was never right,” he tells The Post. “From my view, I’ve had a crackin’ camera career. It felt like potentially I had a lot to lose and a lot to risk. [With this], it just felt like it was at the right time and the show fit.”

Unlike the celebrity survivalist challenges of “Running Wild,” the Animal Planet series features Mungo investigating the legends of mythical creatures that he’s heard about from locals in his years of traveling. In the six-episode season, he goes in search of a shape-shifting creature linked to witchcraft in Namibia, a dragon-like reptile in Borneo and a massive lizard that resembles an extinct dinosaur in Liberia; as well as travels to India, Peru and Argentina.

“Some of the stories I was tracking down sound ridiculous and incredibly far-fetched. But then when you actually get on the ground and you meet these people face-to-face … [they] can often be very convincing,” Mungo says. “[One man in Argentina] was so traumatized by what he saw [while fishing] that he went mute for two and a half weeks. He subsequently lost his job, got outed by the local community as being a bit of a nutter.

“I like the idea of trying to fight [for] them.”

Mungo has worked as a cameraman on “Running Wild with Bear Grylls” (here with guest Kate Winslet) for the past 10 years.NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Given his tenure behind the lens, Mungo shot some of his own series and insisted on picking his own crew. But the transition to host was an adjustment in one way.

“At the start, I was lugging around all the [equipment] kit as I normally do and [my director of photography] said ‘Look Mungo, leave it to me to do,’ ” he says. In other ways, the role-switch was a relief.

“It was nice for a change to actually be able to air my opinions. For the last 20 years I’ve been shooting behind the camera and have to be dead quiet most of the time.”

Mungo, who lives in London with his TV-producer wife and their one-year-old son, has had his share of extreme experiences on the job, including camping on a Canadian mountain as three tornadoes passed through. (Not to mention roughing it with Hollywood stars such as Ben Stiller, Kate Winslet and Channing Tatum).

But it was the premiere episode of “Expedition Mungo” in Liberia, a west African country ravaged by civil war and Ebola, that turned out to be his toughest assignment yet — and not only because it took a plane, 4×4, motorbike, canoe and hiking to get to their remote destination.

“All of the crew at the end of it were pretty exhausted and, to be honest, quite desperate to get out of there,” Mungo says,

“You’re dealing with corruption. You’re dealing with a jungle, which is hot, sticky and dangerous. You tend to be wet the whole time. This river … threw us some real curveballs at us.

“There’s one part where we could have potentially lost lives,” he adds. “Fortunately we didn’t, but it was a very, very close call.”